"Not bad at all my dear." Stevenson grinned and watched her exchange seats with the actual pilot again.

He knew they could have fought off those few fighters. The freighter hadn't been construction just for cargo duty. It was fully armed and armored to handle threats that might arise during a mission. Ilmus had allow Lexx to do what she wanted because he wanted to see how she handled herself and also because it was interesting for him to watch.

"Proceed to the designated LZ Major."

With a confirmation nod the pilot plotted the right course and turned the large freighter in that direction. Before Ilmus stepped out of the cockpit, he could here the co-pilot joking about how Lexx was going to take away the others job if he wasn't carefully. To this Ilmus heard some swear words in response and mostly mumbling. He laughed to himself and shook his head as I proceeded to the rear of the ship.

Once inside the passanger compartment, Colonel Stevenson looked over everyone, including Lexx. "We'll be on the ground within twenty minutes. Get all your gear and load up. I want you boys...and girl." He smirked at Lexx. "To be ready as soon as we touch that soil. You never know what's waiting for you outthere. Be prepared."

The others nodded and started to moved to gather some of the things. Many were nervous, but trying not to show it. They hated ordering from the human and their genetically short tempers were kept in check only by the knowledge that they really did need him. They were fighting for their freedom and he was going to help.

While they packed up, Ilmus moved off towards another part of the ship. A smallish room where the crate he had brought rested against the bulkhead. He quickly punched in the code and pressed his fingers against the handle. A sensor within the handle read his fingerprints and veins before unlocking finally. Inside lay the a dark gray, almost black armor suit, in a few pieces.

As he pulled out the top half, the rear of the vest parted down the middle and folded open. He placed it down on a chair and turned back towards the create to get out the other pieces. Ilmus could feel himself being watched and smiled slowly.

"This is the CS-45 Powered Combat Suit." He exclaimed while pulled out the lower leg sections, which looked to over almost every centimeter of ones foot for maximum protection.

He set these down as well and reach up to the underside of the crate's lid. From there he pulled free a large looking rifle with two barrels and a scope on top. Of course the power back was still inside the bag, but he tossed it towards Lexx anyways.

"And that is the IR-18 MUR. What do you think?"

The weapon was heavy, but not as heavy as its size would suggest. It was also black and coated in non reflective paint. Ilmus knew Lexx was a warrior and wanted to see if she liked the weapon.

"I've got six crates of those onboard if you want one."

Lexx looked over the gun and smiled.

"I like it!"

Lexx signalled Stevenson to come over to look at her datapad.

"I suggest we take this building..." Lexx pointed to a larger building set farther away from the other taller ones. "The rebels will need some sort of base and this one will provide a large area that they can keep a lookout of their surroundings and we'll be able to train them in secret. It used to be owned by a company called GalCorp many years ago until they abandoned it. Here is a layout of the building."

Lexx pointed to the schematic and noticed Stevenson's face went blank.

"What?"

Stevenson knodded his head simply saying "Nothing. Go on."

Lexx shrugged it off and continued.

"I'll enter through the old lab on the third floor. I'll take the rest of the level and signal you when it has been passified on a coded channel. Green is a go, red means retreat, yellow means immediate assistance required. Take the schematics and give them to your team. You'll be able to construct a plan for how you want them to enter. Your team can meet me on the third floor after they control the first two levels and the sub-level. Agreed?"

Stevenson reluctantly agreed as he really didn't want Lexx to go out on her own but knew the woman could handle herself. Perhaps even better than most of the men on his team. Lexx again looked to Stevenson.

"We'll have cover of night and getting to know you as I have confirms that we should control the building by sunrise. Nobody will even know we were there. And.."

Lexx smirked at Stevenson.

"...I'll buy the first round of drinks for us Colonel!!"

Lexx yelled to the pilot "Drop me off on the south side where the open lot is!"

The ship lowered near the ground and Stevenson opened the door. Just before Lexx jumped out, he whispered in her ear "Good luck."

As Lexx started to discuss the mission, Colonel Stevenson's smile went away. He had been in charge of this mission and Lexx was hired to provide him with outside help. Now, however, she was taking charge and almost giving him order, something he did not like from just meeting this woman. Ilmus knew she was capable, but this was also his command and she really had no right to take charge of it and plan the missions without him. Sure she could suggest something, but at this moment she wasn't. She had planned an offensive operation, one that had did not want to undertake.

He had already established a training base outside the city in lands mostly controlled by the resistance. A facility that had taken him many weeks to obtain, stock, and refit for training purposes. Now all that had been wasted and he would need to take his novice troops on their first mission to take over this facility that they really did not need. Ilmus was not sure if Lexx really thought this would be a great place to train or just trying to prove herself worthy. If it was the latter she would have to change her attitude. Being cocky would never work out for her and while she was good, it could get her into lots of trouble. Over his years many men had died just because they thought they were invincible or because they got too cocky in their abilities.

While he was a fun loving guy, this was getting pretty serious. He knew he could stop this all from happening and just tell her no, that would make her angry probably and she would try to do it alone. Lexx seemed like the type that never liked taking orders. If she was really set on this, he would do it without his help and Ilmus did not want her go it alone without support.

Reluctently the Colonel nodded and agreed with the plan, but inside he was all business. His mind raced with the buildings blueprints and he quickly started to guess where enemy forces would be located and where would be the best place to take the by surprise. As he though about the mission he went to put on his gear and by the time it came to Lexx jumping from the freighter, he was in his full combat suit. She could not see his face through the helmet he wore, but he studied her expression fully.

Ilmus couldn't help but smile a little at her comment and wished her luck. He really meant that too.

After her jump, Ilmus moved to the cockpit and instructed the pilots to move into one of the mining tunnels that he had seen running under the compound and came out almost a kilometer away. It was just wide enough to let the freighter slip inside and move all the way towards the building. He watched as the pilots guide the large freighter into this long tunnel and slowly moved along it, through the turns.

Finally after long moments the ship had settled down a hundred meters away from the underground enterance point and the Colonel emerged outside in front of his men. The tunnel was dark and barren, this only sight came from the night vision system in his helmet. Behind him the Nuknog warriors emerged, in their custom made armor suits and night vision goggles that were speciall designed for their phenotype.

They were nervous, he could tell, but they would follow his orders. With their weapons out, they all advanced towards the enterance up ahead. Ilmus scanned the area and registered no movement or life signs, which was good for them. There was a closed door ahead of them and from the blue prints he knew a turbolift would be within the room on the other side.

He tried the door and saw it was closed. With a smirk he mentally gave the suit a command to power up. After that was done he stepped back and slammed his foot against the wall, where he felt the lock mechanism would be. The suit he wore magnified his own strength by many times. The metal wall where he hit, dented inward and he heard a crunch as the lock completely shattered.

Instantly the door slid open half the way and stopped. Ilmus forced it open and was soon inside with his rifle out, searching for targets.

Lexx made her way to the building. There were heaps of trash piled up at the rear of the building which made good cover. Only one guard was in thet area which she quickly dispensed of with her knife. Lexx placed garbage on top of his body to hide it.

Many windows were broken on different levels which made entry fairly easy. Lexx tooke her climbing gear out and quickly scaled the wall entering into the lab window. Two guards were sleeping which again Lexx dealt with using her knife. So far the mission was perfect and quiet.

Before Lexx went to check the hallway she noticed the lab was still setup. Old GalCorp logos were on much of the items surrounding the room. Lexx than picked up a used suringe. It was used to administer growth accellerators.

Lexx then thought to herself. Why would they need growth accellerators? Cierra's intelligence report said there was something left here, but what?

She felt bad she hadn't shared this information with Stevenson, but Lexx didn't think he would have allowed this mission on a hunch.

Lexx returned to the door and locked it to give her more time to investigate the lab. She then walked ot the far end of the room where there was a locked door leading to another room. There was a handpad next to the door. Lexx dragged one of the dead guards over and placed his hand on it which unlocked it. She heard a groning inside.

When she went in it was setup more like a torture chamber. There was a computer next to a bed where a young girl was tied down. Lexx checked her eyes which told her she was heavily drugged. The girl also had several puncture wounds on her arms from getting shots, most likely the growth accellerators.

Lexx accessed the computer which the last person neglected to lock before they were done. She couldn't believe what she saw on the screen. Now getting her out of here could complicate things. Lexx connected her datapad to the sytem and dowloaded all the files. The mission turned into an emergency evac.

Suddenly the door was being beat on loudly. Time was up. Lexx cut the girls limbs from the table and put her low on the floor to protect her from what was going to happen next.

Lexx quickly activated her datapad to signal Stevenson and his team...

"Yellow! Repeat Yellow!"

Lexx prepped her gun just in time for the door to be forced open. She opened fire realizing she was outnumbered. She also couldn'';t risk any explosives since there was a chance the gorl could get hurt or even killed and at this point, Lexx realized the girl needed to be taken form here alive at all costs.

More guards were heading her way as she was able to take a position by the door the lay down fire. For the first time in her life, she would rely on somebody else for help. Lexx needed Stevenson to show up now.

Lexx had one more chance to signal Stevenson on her datapad.

"Emergency evac for two... medical emergency!"

Lexx had to signal again so Stevenson would know she wasn't alone. For now, she was keeping the guards contained but she wouldnlt be able to for long and leaving the girl was not an option or she would have left already.

Stevenson and his Nuknog soldiers had gathered in the large lift car and activated it. They all crotched down and Ilmus held his rifle ready as it came to a stop and the doors parted. As he looked on he stared at the face of a surprised Nuknog soldier who had never before seen this lift open. The male moved to bring rifle to bare, but never made it as the back of his head exploded silently from a well placed round that Ilmus fired.

He slowly and quietly moved through from the lift and made hand gestures for the others to follow and take up positions. As the group they moved towards a set of stairs and upto the next level. This was not like working for his professional team, but the Colonel had to deal with what he had at the moment.

When they reached a corner, Ilmus moved his rifle around it and say the display on his helmet show a clear picture of what was around it. He saw a another soldier patrolling the hall and starting to around and walk away. Ilmus swung his rifle and attached it to his back before pulling out a knife and motioning for the others to standby. They did as told and watched Ilmus slip around the corner without a sound.

He came back after a few seconds with his rifle out and instructed them to follow again. As they moved down the hallway, the soldiers eyed the dead Nuknog who lay against the wall as if sleeping, but only forever.

It was slow going, but soon they had cleared the second level and started to move to the third. The message from Lexx came in just as they stepped into the stairwall. Ilmus cursed himself for letting this mission take place in the first place and quickly thought about tactics and how to approach this. The build's schematics quickly appeared in his helmet a plan was formulated within seconds.

As he ran up the stairs, Ilmus allowed the others to fall behind him since they were not physically built for fast running, especially up stairs. As he reached the third level and slammed the door open, he could hear blaster fire reverbrating around the corners.

Moving quickly with his weapon at the ready, Colonel Stevenson neared the battle that raged ahead and hoped that he would make in time. When he rounded the last corner, the laser fire was more loud and more intense.

Before him was a group of both humans and Nuknog. There was probably ten of them total huddled together, trying to get into a lone room. Lexx was probably inside and they would soon overwhelm her. Ilmus let his skills and instincts pretty much take over and reached into a pocket to pull out a smoke grenade. He pulled the pin and with force rolled it towards the group in front of him.

With an almost silent "puff" the thing went off and quickly spread smoke in all directions and surrounded the enemy within that cloud. A lot of the smoke moved into the room where Lexx was, but that didn't concern the Colonel. He was on autopilot and running down the corridor even before the grenade had gone off.

He had switched his helmet display to thermal, which allowed him to see clearly everything that was within the smoke. With this advantage, he dispatched four of enemy, watching them drop to the ground as the others turned in all directions to try and see something. Blaster fire went by him as the others took blind shots.

When he was close, Ilmus let his rifle drop to hang against his chest in a fluid motion as he reach for his vibroknife and thumbed it on. In seconds he was upon them like the smoke that surrounded the soldiers. His knife was blur through his vision as it flew into a human's back and right into his heart through the ribs. Some of the other men wore armored vests, but Ilmus's mind instantly calculated ways around this. He ducked down quickly as one them took a swing at him and came up behind the man, wraping his arm around his neck while bringing the other hand under his arm to jam the knife straight into his armpit, severing the nerves that resided in that part of the body.

Stevenson sliced another warriors neck before jamming his eblow into another chest. With the suits power engaged, the shot to the chest was like a sledgehammer blow and cracked all the ribs in that section before slaming into the heart, causing it to cease beating forever.

Everything happened in meer seconds, but the smoke was already starting to clear and one of the remaining human men turned towards him while swinging a blaster rifle as well. Ilmus jumped and slammed into man's chest, pushing it through the doorway and into the other side of room. As they both fell, he caught a glimpse of Lexx with a boby of a woman in her hands, and then crashed into the floor on top of the man. He brought his hand back and punched down as hard as he could. The punch smashed into the man's helmet and cracked it open before doing the same to his skull.

Slowly Ilmus climbed off the dead man and looked towards Lexx as he sat on the floor. He stood up straight, towering over her in the black armored suit with the blooded knife still in his one hand. He was going to say something, but then saw her eyes move away from him and towards the door behind him. They were wide with surprise and he quickly turned around, throwing the weapon towarsd the doorway.

In the doorway stood the two remaining Nuknog warriors. The knife impacted against ones chest and dug into it, causing him to yell out. At the same time, however, blaster fire range out and both Nuknog cried out in more pain before falling over, almost cut in half by heavy blaster bolts that had come from the soldiers who followed Ilmus. THey had finally made it into the fight.

"ARe you ok Lexx?" Ilmus asked as he checked her out quickly and moved towards the wall at the rear of the room.

"We're getting out of her." He called out them all while reaching back into his pack and pulling out a small can.

He pressed down on the end and started to trace around the wall, making a large rectangle. As he did foam formed as he exited the can and quickly hardened on the wall. When it was complete, Ilmus pushed in a little detonator and walked back towards the group. He turned around towards the wall just in time to see a status light in his display turn green.

With a simple command the whole section of the wall blew out and when the debris cleared, the freighter they had flown in hovered beyond. Its side hatch was open and ready to accept them as it neared the building.

"We better move, reinforcements are on the way."

Lexx was relieved when she saw Stevenson. Things got closer then they ever were. Lexx was great on her own, but with another person as luggage she lost her effectiveness.

Lexx carried the young girl into the craft. Once they were all onboard, Stevenson closed the hatch. Lexx yelled to him.

"I need a medical kit!"

One of the team threw one to Stevenson who then helped Lexx with getting the girl stable. Lexx look at Stevenson with a serious face.

"Can you help me?"

This was not the normal Lexx Stevenson had come to know. She was concerned and actually asked, not ordered. The two got the girl stable.

As Lexx was checking their new passenger's vitals, Stevenson put his hand on Lexx's shouder.

"What is going on?"

She looked back to him, dragging him close so her voice would not carry. Lexx also handed him the datapad and accessed the information she downloaded. Even Stevenson couldn't believe what he saw.

"It appears they were conducting experiments on the locals here. "

Lexx handed him one of the viles of growth accellerators.

"These increase growth to three years for every one. I'm guessing her age to be around 18-21."

Stevenson signalled to the pilot to head to an encampment he had setup. Lexx knodded her head.

"You had a camp?"

Stevenson gave a sarcastic smile.

"Maybe you should have asked before telling us where we needed to go."

Lexx knodded her head. He was right and she took over. She wasn't used to working with others.

The ship touched down and a med team came out and retrieved the girl from the ship.

"I'm sure it will be a while before she comes to and we get a chance to ask her any questions. Either way, we have whatever it is they were working on."

Ilmus jumped into the ship and quickly moved the girl Lexx had rescued to one of the couches in the lounge. He lay her down and quickly applied some of the meds to prevent her from going into shock. The girl was close to death, her body was giving up on her, for what reasons Ilmus did not know. He also didn't know what a human girl was doing on Sump. There were not many humans on the planet, other then the ones doing merc work or other security.

The Colonel didn't have time to solve these questions yet. He had a duty to complete and they had been sidetracked. Now the King would know they had been there before he had been willing to reveal themselves. Plans were changing ever so quickly and that was no good.

As the ship banked and roared away, Ilmus reached up and slowly removed his helmet. His sweat covered hair stuck to his forward and he reached for a towel to wipe his face.

"Stay with her." Ilmus commanded without a smile and turned to walk quickly towards the cockpit.

Inside he was angry, both at Lexx and at himself. They had went in without knowing anything about it and had it been guarded properly he could have lost many of warriors he had taken much time to train. He took a deep breath and tried to come down while shaking his head. They had saved a life, however, and that was something, he said to himself trying to justify the mission.

Inside the cockpit he let the pilots know to call ahead and have the medical team prepared. As he stood there he watched the barren earth fly past as the ship flew low to the ground and into the SLF controlled territory. Soon the ship paused over a massage hole in the ground, verticle quary shaft, and descend down into it. Numerous tunnel openings could be seen on all sides at different level and into one of these the freighter flew.

After touching down personnel rushed in and took the girl to a nearby medical ward to be checked out by medical droids. Other droids and personnel ran over to unload the freighter.

Ilmus watched Lexx come upto him and nodded at her comment. "I have no idea where she came from. Nuknog don't like outsiders too much and there isn't much work. She might have been kidnapped or something."

He looked around and made sure no one was around to hear when he leaned in to whisper into her ear. "From now on, I'm in command, always, understood? You have a plan, you run it by me, but you do not order me into it. If this happens again, your out of here."

He paused and looked out towards the other end of the tunnel. "Your a great warrior and your smart, but without proper intel and planning, you might just get burn and there wont be backup."

Ilmus looked back down at her. "Now we have a job to do so let go get some rest and we'll start up in the morning."

Lexx was furious and grabbed Stevenson by the arm to stop him.

"Before you go lecturing me on who gives the orders around here, perhaps you should look at the files to see what it is we have! Look at them dammit!"

Lex motioned, shoving the datapad at Stevenson.

"She is a genetically enhanced human. It appears the goverment here wabted to create the perfect soldier. There's more..."

Lexx changed the file being viewed. She then pointed.

"Look at these test results. Enhanced stamina, reflexes, speed..."

Lexx again changed the file.

"This is the project proposal. They wanted to create non-force users with most of the physical abilities of a Jedi, to combat them. When the government discovered that GalCorp had a lab here, they forced them to leave so they could use it for themselves."

Lexx walked a few feet away from Stevenson then spun around.

"I'm going to explain a few things to you. We never get involved in political matters like this. When Cierra told me what the mission was, I was naturally surprised. Because of this, I did some digging and found out there was some weapon that the government here was working on which made it necessary to investigate before I committed myself to this. We now have the weapon."

Lexx turned back around.

"The girl is the third attempt for them. She'll most likely be dead in a matter of days so do with her as you wish, I'm going for walk."

As Lexx through her fit, Ilmus did not back down. He leaned in closer, almost touching her nose with his and looked deep into her eyes.

"The point is that if you did not know she was in there. I'm glad we have her and I'm glad we rescued her from them, but it could have ended very differently. Please don't think I'm a fool and don't think that I'm saying this for no good reason. I've through more shit in my lifetime than probably most of the people you've ever known or heard about. I've seen more people die than you can ever imagin. So please listen to me and learn from me things that are more important than just plan skills." As he said to her it was not in a mean or angry tone, it was simply the facts mixed in with his thoughts.

Ilmus took a deep breath and moved away from Lexx for a bit, looking towards the exit through which the other girl had been taken. "Look, your an excellent soldier...and I would I hate to loose y... an asset like you."

His mind was going to say it differently, but he had to alter his words. Stevenson straightened up and closed his eyes for a moment before breathing gently and thinking some things over.

"I'm sorry for some of the things I've said. I still want us working together ok? It's just been a long day and after everything that has happened we are both pretty emotional." He said to Lexx as she started to walk away.

"The medics will do everything in their power to save that girl. I promise you."

With that said and the helmet at his side, Ilmus turned and moved towards the medical bay. When he stepped inside everything was different. The ground was smooth and clean, the lights were bright, yet soothing, and everything was a white color. He slowly made his way through and asked one of the droids where the new girl was.

After getting those instructions he proceeded there and stopped outside the room. A large clear wall seperated the room from the corridor and he watched the medical staff work on the girl. They had were hooked up to monitors already and had changed her into clean clothes. With her eyes closed, the girl looked peacefull. Other than the bruises on her body of course.

The head doctor turned around and say Ilmus waiting there. He moved out of the room and stood before the Colonel.

"She's pretty beat up Colonel. Those growth accelerants have really stressed her body to the breaking point. She's starting to have cell degeneration throughout and some of her major organs have almost completely shut down. We have her stablized for now and will try to grow some new tissue and organs for her, however, the degenerations is everywhere and it might even start on the new organs we transplant. We'll also be taking her for a dip in the Healer Tank. The stem cell treatments might replace enough of her damage to keep her alive longer." He paused and took a deep breath.

"I have to tell you, sir, even if she survives this, she'll need to have constant Healer or Bacta treatments. There is no way to replace every cell in her body and enough will always survive to breed more and start the process over again."

Ilmus nodded and squeeze the man's shoulder gently before looking back into the room. "Do what you can for her Doc and we'll see about the rest later."

Lexx woke early in the morning. She was still upset over the mission the night before. So many thoughts were going through her mind so she dove right in to the reason she was brought here.

The rebels were conducting targeting practice and many of Stevenson's men were conducting the training. When Lexx walked up she was staring at a rack of blaster rifles. One of Stevenson's men noticed her standing by the rack running her fingers along one of the guns. Lexx looked up and noticed him looking at her with a slight grin on his face. Lexx smirked back toward him and the officer motioned to the other trainers to step back. they were all trying hard not to smile as they knew what was coming next.

Lexx lifted the rifle and aimed toward the individual targets. She began to fire single shots at several of the targets, scoring hits on them all. The rebels were frozen as she fired past their direction. Once she was done, Lexx threw the rifle down and began another speech.

Lexx ended her rant as she did on Belgaroth.

"For those of you who don't know what courage is.."

Lexx suddenly spun around and caught a knife thrown in her direction. Stevenson was walking over form some distance away.

Stevenson ended Lexx's speech with "THAT is courage. Back to your training men."

Stevensons officers went back to work as he stepped up to Lexx.

"I guess I deserved that." Lexx said with frown. "You did, but your point was still made to the men." Stevenson replied.

The two stared at one another until they each smiled.

"Excuse me for one moment Sir." Lexx said as she called one of Stevenson's officers over.

"I'd like you to have each of the rebels stand where I was and fire at those same targets. Conduct an elimination until only one remains and have him report to me." The officer went back and started to orgainize the exercise.

Lexx looked back to Stevenson. "They'll need a long range assasin. I'll do my best with the training without giving away all of my secrets. Is that agreeable to you Sir?"

Stevenson let out a laugh. "Sir?" Lexx replied in a low tone. "Yeah." Stevenson's smile washed away slightly. "What's the occasion?" Lexx's voice was still low. "I've decided to give you the respect you deserve. I'm nothing more than a merc paid to train a top notch assasin for you. You're the seasoned officer."

Stevenson motioned to Lexx to walk with him. It seemed the two had finally come to terms with each other and had an understanding.

"If I may make a suggestion Colonel, I recommend you give me a rank to be addressed by. The rebels don't need to know you hired an assasin to aid in their training. Perhaps... General?"

Lexx looked at Stevenson as the two laughed. "We'll think of something."

Lexx got serious again.

"So how is the girl?"